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Two-dimensional (2D) materials such as graphene, black phosphorus, and transition metal dichalcogenides have attracted significant research attention due to their novel properties and wide range of applications in electronic and optoelectronic devices. In particular, investigation of twist-controlled 2D materials has attracted tremendous attention due to their excellent properties such as smooth heterointerfaces, highly gate-tunable bandgaps, and ultrafast carrier transport. Twist-controlled 2D materials combined with their fascinating electronic structures have also indicated their outstanding potential in electronic and optoelectronic applications. In this review, the recent developments in twisted 2D materials are summarized, covering aspects related to their fabrication, twist angle-dependent optical properties, and optoelectronic applications. The photodetectors and orientation-dependent van der Waals junctions are introduced and discussed systematically. Finally, we deliver a summary and outlook to provide a guideline for the future development of this rapidly growing field.

Two-dimensional (2D) bipolar junction transistors (BJTs) with van der Waals heterostructures play an important role in the development of future nanoelectronics. Herein, a convenient method is introduced for fabricating a symmetric bipolar junction transistor (SBJT), constructed from black phosphorus and MoS2, with femtosecond laser processing. This SBJT exhibits good bidirectional current amplification owing to its symmetric structure. We placed a top gate on one side of the SBJT to change the difference in the major carrier concentration between the emitter and collector in order to further investigate the effects of electrostatic doping on the device performance. The SBJT can also act as a gate-tunable phototransistor with good photodetectivity and photocurrent gain of β = ∼21. Scanning photocurrent images were used to determine the mechanism governing photocurrent amplification in the phototransistor. These results promote the development of the applications of multifunctional nanoelectronics based on 2D materials.

The remarkable in-plane anisotropy of anisotropic two-dimensional materials (ATDMs), such as black phosphorus (BP), ReS2, and ReSe2, provides a new degree of freedom for the design of novel orientation-based optical and electronic devices. Therefore, visualization of the anisotropy and determination of the crystal orientation (CO) of ATDMs is of fundamental importance. Herein, using a setup equipped with a non-polarized beam splitter, a four-dimensional anisotropic imaging technique (AIT) based on the anisotropic optical response of ATDMs was proposed, by which the COs of many different ATDMs on the same substrate could be efficiently (

van der Waals p-n heterostructures based on p-type black phosphorus (BP) integrated with other two-dimensional (2D) layered materials have shown potential applications in electronic and optoelectronic devices, including logic rectifiers and polarization-sensitive photodetectors. However, the engineering of carriers transport anisotropy, which is related to the linear dichroism, have not yet been investigated. Here, we demonstrate a novel van der Waals device of orientation-perpendicular BP homojunction based on the anisotropic band structures between the armchair and zigzag directions. The structure exhibits good gate-tunable diode-like rectification characteristics caused by the barrier between the two perpendicular crystal orientations. Moreover, we demonstrate that the unique mechanisms of the polarization-sensitivity properties of this junction are involved with the linear dichroism and the anisotropic carriers transport engineering. These results were verified by the scanning photocurrent images experiments. This work paves the way for 2D anisotropic layered materials for next-generation electronic and optoelectronic devices.

Anisotropic two-dimensional materials, such as black phosphorus (BP) and rhenium disulfide (ReS2), possess intrinsically in-plane anisotropic properties that can be tuned for advanced applications, like in thin-film polarizers or polarization-sensitive photodetectors. The crystal orientations should be accurately determined before these materials are applied. However, current methods for measuring the crystalline orientation, such as reflection and transmission spectra, and polarized Raman-related techniques, suffer from significant uncertainty and unreliability because of complex interference, the sample thickness and background signals, which can be particularly strong on transparent substrates. Herein, for the first time, we present a new high-accuracy and background-free method, photothermal detection (PTD), for the identification of the crystalline orientation of BP and ReS2 on a transparent substrate. PTD is a refractive index sensing optical technique, in which a modulated pump beam is absorbed by BP or ReS2, leading to a local change in the refractive index of the photothermal medium. The propagation of the probe beam at different wavelengths is modified by the produced periodical change of the refractive index. PTD could be utilized here to identify the crystalline orientation explicitly and accurately. Taking into account the signal generated by the anisotropic optical absorption of the pump beam and the resulting heating of the liquid medium, PTD has no background interference regardless of the excitation wavelength and samples thickness. By analyzing the relationship between the polarization angle of the pump beam and the strength of the photothermal signal, the crystalline orientation can be accurately distinguished. Therefore, PTD overcomes typical challenges associated with transparent substrates, including insulating and rough surfaces, and enables the unambiguous identification of crystalline orientation.

Two-dimensional (2D) bipolar junction transistors (BJTs) with van der Waals heterostructures play an important role in the development of future nanoelectronics. Herein, a convenient method is introduced for fabricating a symmetric bipolar junction transistor (SBJT), constructed from black phosphorus and MoS

Vertically stacked devices of two-dimensional layered materials (2DLMs) based on van der Waals heterostructures (vdWHs) have recently attracted considerable attention due to their good properties. A tunneling structure is presented in this paper that, unlike other tunneling structures, has no specific insulating two-dimensional materials, such as boron nitride. The tunneling structure is comprised of graphene and black phosphorus. Black phosphorus is chemically active, and can be easily oxidized in the air to form an insulating layer. A tunneling device was produced based on this characteristic of black phosphorus. The insulation layer was an oxide layer formed by the oxidation of black phosphorus. The structure takes advantage of the easy oxidation ability of black phosphorus. The presence of a black phosphorus oxide layer was determined by XPS analysis. The tunneling characteristics of the overlay structure were determined by measuring the current-voltage (Id-V) curve of the device. Simulation studies showed that the oxidation layer was responsible for the tunneling effect. Compared with other black phosphorus devices, the photoelectric properties of the proposed device were greatly improved.

Manipulating the polarization of an incident beam using two-dimensional materials has become an important research direction towards the development of nano-optical devices. Black phosphorus (BP) and rhenium diselenide (ReSe2) possess excellent in-plane optical anisotropy with optical birefringence in the visible region, which has led to novel applications in polarizing optics and optoelectronics. Herein, the polarization-dependent absorption of BP and ReSe2 and a modulated pump beam is utilized to obtain the photothermal signal from them. The photothermal anisotropy of BP and ReSe2 has been explored using photothermal detection. Then we have defined the photothermal contrast using the ratio of the maximum to the minimum of the photothermal signal. The photothermal contrast of BP and ReSe2 can be obtained accurately by the relationship between the polarization angle of the pump light and the photothermal signal. We demonstrate that a layered BP with different thicknesses can remarkably change the photothermal contrast. In contrast, the photothermal contrast of ReSe2 does not change with the different thicknesses of the samples. Further, the photothermal anisotropies of BP/ReSe2 heterostructures were also explored. The photothermal contrasts of samples were observed to change with different stacking angles indicating that the photothermal anisotropy of heterostructures is dependent on the stacking angle. Our findings provide new prospects for designing novel optical devices based on two-dimensional anisotropic materials, with potential applications in electronics, photonics, and optoelectronics.

PtSe2, an emerging 2D group-10 transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD), has aroused significant attention recently due to its intriguing physical properties. Here, the optical properties of chemical vapor deposition-grown PtSe2 films with different thicknesses were characterized with nondestructive spectroscopic ellipsometry and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The polarized optical microscopy reveals the isotropic in-plane optical response of the continuous PtSe2 films in a scale size of at least as small as 143 × 108 µm2. The electrical transport characterization and UV-mid infrared absorption spectra reveal the coexistence of both semiconducting and metallic contents in these PtSe2 films, making PtSe2 quite different among the 2D material family. The effective refractive index (n) and the extinction coefficient (k) over a spectra range of 360–1700 nm were obtained. In contrast to other TMDs, the values of n and k of PtSe2 were found to have a strong dependence on the thickness and they decrease as the reduction of thickness. This work is conducive to provide vital parameters for further study on PtSe2 and could facilitate its application in optoelectronic devices.

Despite many decades of research of diodes, which are fundamental components of electronic and photoelectronic devices with p-n or Schottky junctions using bulk or 2D materials, stereotyped architectures and complex technological processing (doping and multiple material operations) have limited future development. Here, a novel rectification device, an orientation-induced diode, assembled using only few-layered black phosphorus (BP) is investigated. The key to its realization is to utilize the remarkable anisotropy of BP in low dimensions and change the charge-transport conditions abruptly along the different crystal orientations. Rectification ratios of 6.8, 22, and 115 can be achieved in cruciform BP, cross-stacked BP junctions, and BP junctions stacked with vertical orientations, respectively. The underlying physical processes and mechanisms can be explained using "orientation barrier" band theory. The theoretical results are experimentally confirmed using localized scanning photocurrent imaging. These orientation-induced optoelectronic devices open possibilities for 2D anisotropic materials with a new degree of freedom to improve modulation in diodes.

To investigate the antihepatocellular carcinoma effects of Chi-Shen extract (CSE) from the water-soluble compounds of Salvia miltiorrhiza and Paeoniae radix. The effect of CSE on the growth of HepG2 cells (hepatocellular carcinoma cell line) was studied by 3-(4,5)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide assay. Apoptosis were detected through acridine orange (AO) and ethylene dibromide (EB) staining and DNA fragmentation assay. The effect of CSE on the cell cycle of HepG2 cells was studied by the propidium iodide staining method. The activation of caspases-3, -8 and -9 was examined by immunoassay kits. The transcription of the Bcl-2 family and p53 was detected by RT-PCR. Our data revealed that CSE strongly induced HepG2 cell death in a dose- and time-dependent manner. CSE-induced cell death was considered to be apoptotic by observing the typical apoptotic morphological change by AO/EB staining and DNA fragmentation assay. The induction of HepG2 cell death was caused by an induction of apoptosis for the sub-G1 proportion increase, the downregulation of Bcl-2, the upregulation of Bax and p53, and the activation of the caspases-3 and -9 pathways. These results clearly demonstrated that CSE was able to inhibit the proliferation of HepG2 cells and cause apoptosis. Moreover, the anticancer effects of CSE were related to the Bcl-2 family pathway and the activation of caspases-3 and -9 in HepG2 cells.